


Back to Black

by nirvhannahcornell



Category: Amy Winehouse (Musician)
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Drug Use, F/M, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, One Shot, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-09
Packaged: 2020-06-25 10:05:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19743463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirvhannahcornell/pseuds/nirvhannahcornell
Summary: Following her death in July 2011, an anonymous Belgian journalist writes about his encounter with Amy Winehouse five years before, and how her life could have been so much different.





	Back to Black

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the Lars Ulrich fic Darkness Taking Dawn and a Ben Shepherd one shot called Collide. Surprised there are no Amy fics here on AO3: she’s one of my favorite singers ever.

She was like the girl next door whom you felt afraid to speak to on a regular basis. I had heard so much about her upon my travels to England, and read so much about her, how she was going to be the singer to bring jazz into the spotlight like in the first half of the century. One can call me vain, but I had taken interest in her at first in that she and I were the same age. And then I found out she and I stood on the same wavelength, orphaned by the world and treated like outsiders. With her cocky London accent, jet black hair, and multiple tattoos adorning her body, she had everything I wanted and everything you asked for in a young lady.  
I met Amy when she was twenty two going on twenty three. It was a warm, midsummer evening in my hometown of Brussels and I had clocked out for the weekend. At the time, I was a mere intern at the newspaper I worked at, and given I had nothing better to do, I had considered taking the train over to Berlin and then to Copenhagen for a few days alone. But for this night, I decided to take a walk into town towards the nearest pub for a drink.  
I recall rolling up my sleeves and unbuttoning the top two buttons of my shirt to expose my neck and my collar bones. I was single, fresh out of college, and away from my stepfather’s terror: I had faith in my mother to leave him and go to Paris but after my father’s death, I had a slight doubt that she would make the change soon enough. For the time being, I lived alone on the outskirts of town, and with two girlfriends to my name, I wanted another try at the whole dating scene.  
I stepped into the pub, a cool intimate room with all wooden walls illuminated by amber lights and a low ceiling. Near the bar was a group of patrons, congregated around two people at the far end. I took a seat at the other end and asked for a glass of Belgian beer; I caught the sound of a woman’s voice on the far end of the bar, and something about her voice struck me. It was loud, but not unbearable. She also spoke to the other patrons in English, while in a French speaking country. English from England, not America.  
I sat there for a moment in anticipation of my drink and then, when I thanked the tender and began to take my first sip, there was a loud clang! on the far end of the bar and everyone cheered.  
The noise in the pub proved to be a bit too much, but the beer was so delicious. I thought about taking my glass into the men’s water closet or outside, but as I took another sip and dribbled a bit on my shirt. At least I missed my collar bones. I decided to duck out right then to the closets down the corridor.  
I stumbled into the first one and swiped a couple of paper towels off of the dispenser upon the wall. A little cool water goes a long way after all; I dabbled the smudge in my shirt, right beneath the lapels, until it started to fade out. The door swung open and she stumbled into the room.  
“Oh, sorry!” she declared, chuckling and bringing a hand to her mouth. “I thought this was th’ little girls’ room.”  
“Next door, mademoiselle,” I beckoned her, not taking my hand off of the spot on my chest. She eyed my hand and my popped shirt collar for a few seconds, but I had no doubt that was enough before she bowed out once again. I shook my head and scrubbed the spot a couple more times before I disposed of the napkins.  
I returned to the bar and my glass of beer. No sooner than when I took my seat did I feel a tap on my shoulder. I turned my head to the left: no one there. I turned to the right, and she took her seat next to me at the bar. I caught a glimpse of the beauty mark on her face and the Magen David around her neck.  
“Yes?” I asked her.  
“I like the way you said ‘mademoiselle’ to me back there,” she remarked with a twinkle in her eye.  
“I was being polite, Cherie,” I pointed out. “Have you tried our beer?”  
“I ‘ave! There’s nothin’ like it. I’m a sucker for’a th’ chocolate, too.”  
She held out her hand.  
“I’m Amy Jade Winehouse and I do nothing,” she introduced herself.  
“You do nothing?”  
“Nothin’ at all.”  
And that was the first evening I crossed paths with her. We chatted for a while and then prior to her leaving with her party there at the bar, she gave me her phone number. I vowed to give her a ring if and when I had the chance.  
The second time I crossed paths with her was the month after to the day, but this time around, I was in Copenhagen, taking a walk about the dock before those bright colored houses which look as though they’re made of gingerbread. I was about to take a rest near the edge of the harbor when I heard her voice once again, this time closer to the dock. I spotted her wrapped in a low cut red sundress and with her hair teased up in a beehive hairdo. I also spotted the gentleman in a black trilby hat next to her: I had no idea about him. I did not recognize him from the pub in Brussels and he lacked any sort of semblance to tie him to the Northern side of Europe. I hung there near the edge of the dock, feeling those first tinges of protection within. I had no idea about him, but she looked comfortable with him. I ducked behind a stone pillar so as to stay out of her sight.  
I waited a few moments and then, she started to touch his chest. I waited another minute before she leaned forward into his face.  
Suffice to say, my heart sank. I felt like such an idiot, but I began to wonder why she even gave me her number in the first place. I returned to my room to give her a call. I reached her secretary and I left a message with her, and she vowed to tell Amy when she returned to England.  
Within time, she called me from her room in the Zealand, speaking to me in a near whisper the whole entire time. I asked her about the man at the harbor and she referred to him as her alternative boyfriend from her regular relationship. She called me “her hall pass”, and added that she was merely on the search for a reliable romance. I told her I could provide her which such a thing granted she promised to forget about those two men.  
“‘Ang on, I’m comin’ over,” she told me, and without another word, she hung up the phone. I waited about half an hour with a bottle of Danish akvavit and a bit of Kringle before I heard a knock on the door. I let her into my room and she greeted me with a big soul kiss on the lips. She pushed the door closed with her hip, and then we backed up towards the bed.  
We made love for about twenty minutes, feeling one another up before she told me she had lace panties on underneath the dress. I took off the dress and we went from there.  
I had no doubt she was mine from that point onward, and what better way than underneath the Danish late summer twilight. After our rendezvous, we lay in bed and talked: I was enthralled by her love of jazz and Frank Sinatra, but also her respect for the alternative rock movement in the nineties. She told me one of her favorite albums was Hole’s Live Through This; I told her the song “Jennifer’s Body” was one of my favorites. She showed me a quaint smile, which emphasized the beauty mark on her, and added she had a good feeling about the two of us.  
I asked her to return home with me to Brussels and she told me she had work with a man named Mark Ronson for her next album back in England. But she vowed to return to me soon enough.  
This was before I found out her grandmother passed away and further before I found out she had a problem with heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. I tried reaching out to her numerous times thereafter, but I was always told she was too busy. It wasn’t long before I found out she had married her regular boyfriend in America, as if neither I or the man in Denmark ever happened.  
There were nights I wondered about Amy, if she was happy with her choice and if she and Blake took good care of themselves in England. I thought about her parents and if they had their worries about her like how I did.  
Whenever my stepfather drank, he became belligerent and violent towards my mother and me, and thus I had the same concern.  
I began to witness more press coverage about her and Blake when the release date for Back to Black neared closer and closer. I thought about the tabloid coverage with Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love and their battles with heroin, and wondered if history was about to repeat itself. But as much as I wanted to call Amy and ask about her and her marriage, I wanted to give her the space she needed. I worked in the press after all, and the economy was beginning to take a hit at this point. I had worries if I was to keep my job if things worsened, which they did: I awoke on that autumnal morning the United States stock market fell off a cliff and braced myself for the absolute worst happening in Europe. But the silver lining was that I had done enough work to keep my job, and I received word that Amy and Blake had separated.  
In fact, once I found the divorce was final between her and Blake, I contemplated asking her to be officially mine, to fly her to Belgium and salvage her from the nightmare of living in such squalor and come to the land of the best chocolate and beer on Earth. I even held the phone in my hand and I dialed the number.  
But then? My call was directed to a call center, several operators placing me on hold until I was put on with one of her spokesmen. He told me Amy was busy writing and recording with Ronson and did not wish to be disturbed. I told him I was a friend who worked with the Belgian press and I wished to speak to her. He kept insisting I call back when I get the chance. But I never did have a chance: my workload and my home life both caught up with me with the economy struggling here in Europe and my mother moving in with me to get away from my stepfather. On top of all of this, I had to adjust to a new decade of things going on in the press. My one chance with Amy had vanished about as fast as it came to me.  
And now, to make matters worse, she’s gone. I had been told her body couldn’t take another drop of alcohol, nor could her stomach take losing its own contents by force. She left without bidding farewell to anyone, except maybe her bodyguard. She closed her eyes, and went to sleep in the middle of the night, and never woke up. My darling Amy is now sleeping with her fellow clubbers as they form a roundabout within the number twenty seven. The headless horseman picked up her corpse and brought her to the carousel with Cobain, Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Morrison, Pete Ham, and others.  
Even as I move on with life and try to start a family of my own, I cannot help but think about her from time to time. She was so close to me, breathing into the mouthpiece of her phone at me, touching my chest, and giving me all of the sweetest kisses, none of which carried the slightest trace of cocaine or heroin. She lurked right there before me and there was nothing I could do about it. We only said goodbye with words, and I died a hundred times in her wake.  
Just relax, just go to sleep.


End file.
